Three days passed after Sophie sent the email. They were not empty days — Aaron went to the office each morning, checked in with Jessica, reviewed the reports that Dr. Osei generated with machine-like efficiency — but they were days defined by waiting, by the particular stillness of a life that had been moving so fast it had forgotten how to slow down.
Sophie checked her phone every few minutes. Not obsessively — she was too composed for that — but with a quiet, repeated gesture that Aaron had come to recognize: the way she picked it up, swiped the screen, saw nothing new, and set it back down. She did it at breakfast, her coffee growing cold. She did it during lunch, the sandwich untouched in her hand. She did it on the terrace in the afternoon, the book open on her lap, her attention drifting from the page to the screen and back again.
On the second day, she said: "What if she doesn't respond?"
"It's only been two days."
